Duration: 2:5
Wairakei school principal, Shane Buckner explains how positive feedback from teachers and parents helped the school decide to make their Year 5 and 6 classes one-to-one BYOD (iPads) and Year 3 and 4 classes optional.
Shane Buckner:
The survey and responses that we’ve had, discussions that we’ve had with other parents, and then the proposal being evaluated by the Board, the next steps are that we’ve decided that the Year 5 and 6 classes, the three of them next year are all going to be one-to-one BYOD, and we’ve actually had Year 3 and 4 children to be optional.
Now that came from teachers. They have seen the benefit as well you see, so there’s other teachers who are saying well let’s give them the option here as well.
Obviously when we are rolling this out to more classes there is PD involved, not only for the teachers but also for the parents. We’ve got planned parent meetings and we’re going to use our frequently asked questions website.
We’re also going to have our teachers be involved in in-house PD, mainly led by Kate and myself. And what’s happened so far, the systems that we need to put in place for it to happen, and it’s of course about the learning, it’s not just about the device being used.
Part of actually getting devices out into our school is about giving options and choices to parents about that purchase. We are very lucky to have a supplier, or a couple of suppliers, who are engaging with us around providing interest-free finance for over two years for these devices. We’ve also got some other suppliers who are able to offer us bundle deals, unable to offer finance but they are able to offer bundle deals. So adding in extra bits and pieces to go with the iPads.